Forest dept to establish base camp at Mandavgan Farata

The recent incident of the leopard sightings as well as the two human deaths due to a leopard attack has raised concerns among the villagers in Shirur

With rising leopard conflict incidents in the area, the forest department will establish a base camp at Mandavgan Farata for Shirur tehsil. The forest department along with multiple cages and trap cameras, plans to deploy 15 personnel in this area, who will be responsible for the immediate response in case of man-leopard conflict.

Considering the urgency of the situation, and to reduce the response time in conflict incidents in Junnar, the forest department came up with the idea to set up another base camp for Shirur since the region required additional measures.  (HT PHOTO)

The recent incident of the leopard sightings as well as the two human deaths due to a leopard attack has raised concerns among the villagers in Shirur. Following the recent incident, the forest department faced severe backlash from the villagers as they accused the department officials of not responding timely in conflict scenarios and also that the department is failing to mitigate the conflict situation in Shirur.

Considering the urgency of the situation, and to reduce the response time in conflict incidents in Junnar, the forest department came up with the idea to set up another base camp for Shirur since the region required additional measures.

Speaking about the basecamp project, Smita Rajhans, assistant conservator of the forest said, “Mandavgan Farata is farther from the division office. After learning about Saturday’s incident, we deployed a team and a few cages that are set up in Mandavgan Farata, however for that the team was required to travel 100 km and from the Junnar division office, the distance is about 125 km. The cages which are shifted from our base camp in Pimparkhed village are also about 65 km away from the Mandavgan Farata village, which requires more time to mobilize and set up the system in the conflict area.”

In addition to a permanent base camp, a team of 15 personnel will be set up in Mandavgan Farata village, said Rajhans. All required resources will be made available in this base camp, and this will help us to reduce the response time in the Shirur range and immediate support can be provided in case of a conflict situation.